Action adventure account of Jesus’ lifeNew Delhi: Hollywood is to fill in Jesus’ “missing years” in the Bible with a story about him as a wandering mystic who travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the caste system.

Film producers have delved into revisionist scholarship to piece together what they say was Jesus’ life between the ages of 13 and 30, a period untouched by the gospels.

The result is The Aquarian Gospel, a $20-million movie which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India. The movie takes its name from a century-old book that examined Christianity’s eastern roots and is in its 53rd reprint.

Casting begins

The film’s producers say the movie will be shot using actors and computer animation like 300, the retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, and will follow the travels of Yeshua, believed to be the name for Jesus in Aramaic, from West Asia to India. Casting for Bollywood and
Hollywood actors has begun.

“The Bible devotes just seven words to the most formative years of Yeshua’s life saying: ‘The boy grew in wisdom and stature’. The [film] will follow Christ’s journey to the east where he encounters other traditions, and discovers the principles that are the bedrock of all the world’s great religions,” said Drew Heriot, the director, whose credits include the cult hit The Secret.

The film, due for release in 2009, sets out to be a fantasy action adventure account of Jesus’ life with the three wise men as his mentors. Although the producers say the film will feature a “young and beautiful” princess, it is not clear whether Jesus in the movie is to have a love interest.

The producers say they are hoping for commercial and spiritual gains. “We think that Indian religions and Buddhism, especially with the idea of meditation, played a big part in Christ’s thinking. In the film we are looking beyond the canonised gospels to the ‘lost’ gospels,” said William Sees Keenan, the producer, who is currently making Lindsay Lohan’s Poor Things. “We are looking at new themes. In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas,” said Mr. Keenan.

The myth-makers and gullible swamis

Earlier book

The theory that Jesus’ teachings had roots in Indian traditions has been around for more than a century. In 1894, a Russian doctor, Nicholas Notovitch, published a book The Unknown Life of Christ, in which he claimed that while recovering from a broken leg in a Tibetan monastery in the Ladakh region, close to Kashmir, he had been shown evidence of Christ’s Indian wanderings. He said he was shown a scroll recording a visit by Jesus to
India and to the Tibetan region as a young man. Indian experts claim that documentary proof remains of this visit.

“I have seen the scrolls which show Buddhist monks talking about Jesus’ visits. There are also coins from that period which show Yuzu or have the legend Issa on them, referring to Jesus from that period,” said Fida Hassnain, former director of archaeology at the University of Srinagar.Mr. Hassnain, who has written books on the legend of Jesus in India, says there was extensive traffic between the Mediterranean and India around the time of Jesus’ life. The academic pointed out that in Srinagar a tomb of Issa is still venerated. “It is the Catholic Church which has closed its mind on the subject. Historians have not.”

More dramatic are the claims that Buddhism had prompted the move from the “eye for an eye” ideology of the Old Testament to “love thy neighbour” in the New Testament.

In 1995 a German religious expert, Holger Kersten, claimed that Jesus had been schooled by Buddhist monks to believe in non-violence and to challenge the priesthood. Mr. Kersten’s book is a bestseller in India.

Church’s view

The Catholic Church in India dismisses the film as just “Hollywood filmmakers in search of a new audience rather than the truth.” Aware that religious passions are easily inflamed, after the Da Vinci Code film sparked protests among Indian Christians, its spokesman said that a movie about Jesus in India was “fantasy and fiction.”

CommentsV The Christians give one more opportunity to read and understand the Bible to find out the myths, forgeries and manipulations in making of Christianity. As for as Christianity and Islam is concerned Indians and rather Hindus go by what others say about these non-Hindu, non-Indian religions. As Christians and Muslims have studied, researched and handled Hindu religion, scriptures and Hindus, the Hindus never studied, researched and handled Christianity and Islam. Even at elite, secular or atheist level, an impression has been formed that such study should not or need not be there. Most of the Indians do not know about the “Jesus Myth” – http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/

V Hollywood can fill in Jesus’ “missing years” or anything in the Bible with a story about him as a wandering mystic or adventurer or revolutionist, but it has no business to spread myths and lies as such motive raise other questions.

V Indians have to be told clearly that there had never been any historical Jesus and while dealing with mythical Jesus and connected so-called fabricated bibles, there have been many such fables making him to travel to
Egypt and so on, but to bring him to
India is totally unimaginable even for Christian mind.

V To say or claim that he “travelled across India, living in Buddhist monasteries and speaking out against the caste system” etc., as mention clearly expose that the film-makers have other political and social manipulative agenda under the guise of film and myth-making .

V Film producers with revisionist or any scholarship with $20-million or more can produce any movie, as Indians or Hindus have no match for such sophistication and trickery and they can never produce any counter-movie.

V It can be a fantasy action adventure account of Jesus’ life with the “three wise men” as his mentors, but such exigency exposes the aiding and abetting the frauds and forgers of many scholars who have been notorious enough to indulging in such shameless act. The Madras Archbishop Arulappa did it with just Rs. 14 lakhs in 1980s, but got red-handed as his accomplice got exposed for his spurious research on the same subject matter!

V Although the producers say the film will feature a “young and beautiful” princess, it is not clear whether Jesus in the movie is to have a love interest. So what, Mary Magdalene was there according to them!

V William Sees Keenan, the producer has made another point: “In our story Jesus was loyal to the untouchables and he defended them with his life by saying that everyone could read the Vedas,”! So, he is going to defend the cause of Dalits! All Christians go to take the movie and use for their evangelical activities as a part of their “Liberation Theology”! Pope Gregory, who is very often blamed for nurturing “Caste system” in Indian Christianity for the issue of the Bull would be exonerated as Jesus himself supported the Dalits that to he had been very loyal to them! An Indians or Hindus would hope that William Sees Keenan would print Vedas and circulate everywhere as anyone can read Vedas!

V From where they got such wonderful and fantastic ideas? It is answered: The theory that Jesus’ teachings had roots in Indian traditions has been around for more than a century. In 1894, a Russian doctor, Nicholas Notovitch, published a book The Unknown Life of Christ, in which he claimed that while recovering from a broken leg in a Tibetan monastery in the Ladakh region, close to
Kashmir, he had been shown evidence of Christ’s Indian wanderings. He said he was shown a scroll recording a visit by Jesus to
India and to the Tibetan region as a young man. Indian experts claim that documentary proof remains of this visit. And what about the veracity and authenticity of such scrolls?

V Russian journalist Nicholas Notovitch’s 1894 The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ more modestly claimed to be based on scrolls in a Tibetan lamasery ‘proving” that Christ studied the Veda in India before mastering the Buddhist Scriptures in Kashmir and Tibet. That tale is debunked in The Issa Tale That Will Not Die, Nicholas Notovitch and His Fraudulent Gospel (Lanham: Rowman ” Littlefield 2003) by Louis Fader. http://www.caslon.com.au/forgeryprofile3.htm

V Fida Hassnain, former director of archaeology at the University of Srinagar claims, “I have seen the scrolls which show Buddhist monks talking about Jesus’ visits. There are also coins from that period which show Yuzu or have the legend Issa on them, referring to Jesus from that period”. Mr. Hassnain, who has written books on the legend of Jesus in India, says there was extensive traffic between the Mediterranean and India around the time of Jesus’ life. The academic pointed out that in Srinagar a tomb of Issa is still venerated. “It is the Catholic Church which has closed its mind on the subject. Historians have not.” However, why he has not mentioned the full story that Jesus married Mary Magdalene, begot children and died there like men. Note, all these narrations would go against the basic tenets of Christianity, as crucifixion, resurrection, ascension etc., are totally denied here. We do not know as to whether Fida Hassnain has made such comments as Muslim, believer of Quaran or otherwise, as Quaran says Jesus was taken to an elevated place, where waters were flowing and he was survived thereafter. That is he was not crucified! Anyway, it would be interesting for Indians to watch the movie with a lot of romantic theology at the cost of Hollywood!

V John Dayal, president of the All India Catholic Union claims that “I have personally investigated many of these claims and they remain what they first seem: fiction,” but he has never questioned such frauds already taken place in India!

V The Catholic Church in India could dismiss the film as just “Hollywood filmmakers in search of a new audience rather than the truth.” Aware that religious passions are easily inflamed, after the Da Vinci Code film sparked protests among Indian Christians, its spokesman said that a movie about Jesus in India was “fantasy and fiction.” But, they cannot be double-speak as in the case of “Inculturation”, “Inter-faith / religious dialogue” etc.

V Meanwhile, we can consult Romila Thapar about the truth as she has already recorded that the biographies of Jesus, Mohammed etc., have been well accepted and so on in “The Hindu” and “Economic and Political Weekly”. We can consult Karunanidhi also so that he would ask so many questions: